robertguyton

“Goodness me the trolls are out in force across social media and with such glee as well. It is almost as if Clare’s unfortunate errors are the first of their kind. There have been regular and similar goings-on in all Governments as long as I remember, that is 60+ years. Social media’s appalling responses are tantamount to bullying at its worst. It all seems totally over the top.

What concerns me are the bully verbal tactics used by the Opposition, starting with the urgent debate Wednesday last, on Clare’s removal from her two portfolios. The screaming fits of SB and PB and others is quite ridiculous, one doesn’t have to scream to get ones point across If these bullying verbal and harassment tactics occurred in a ‘normal’ work place heads would roll- the employment court would be busy.

I’m very much aware that the Oppositions role is to keep the Government responsible but personal attacks to demean, belittle to the point demonising with the intent to break someone is surely not acceptable in this day and age; in fact it is a form of violence. Is there any need for the parliamentary rhetorical space to be so confrontational and adversarial?

Of course it is a place of rhetorical performance too, but the current performance is surely an example of very poor performance. Somehow society’s expectations as displayed in the current social media spat is that our Parliamentary rhetorical and performance space continue to be measured by male values of authoritativeness in decision making, and confrontational performance. Parliamentary rhetorical space has been built on centuries of male-loaded power so it will hard to break down. The Speaker should have a role to play in correcting this dismal performance?”

David

200,000 jobs created in the US last month, unemployment rate of 3.9% and wage rises of 2.9%. I guess for most Americans that is probably more important than a treasonous op ed in the failing NY Times.
Started under Obama but the fed printed 4 trillion dollars under him.

Griff.

4 Trillion ?
As a result of the quantitative easing to head off Bushes GFC. Dept was going down in Obama’s last term once the GFC was surmounted.
Now?
21.5 trillion and rising fast.http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Shite oh dear .
Borrow and hope in a low inflation environment is a rout to bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy is about the only thing the clown “in charge” has lots of experience in .

Trust a RWNJ to ignore basic fuckin economic theory to spread his delusions.

Alan Wilkinson

Joe Bloggs

I don’t recall you bleating when Chris Collins was arrested a month ago for insider trading.

You’ll remember Collins? One of the unindicted co-conspirator in federal crime’s earliest and most robust supporters? The one who was nabbed on insider-trading charges tied to a phone call he made from the White House lawn?

sorethumb

This is Nike’s second reason to be confident: drill down into this week’s polls and they show that support for Nike and Kaepernick is strongest among millennial or Gen-Z, African-American, liberal urbanites — the group Nike targets. The company’s biggest risk is becoming “mainstream, the usual, everywhere, tamed”, Prof Lee says. Courting controversy forces its most dedicated fans to defend it and catches the eye of more neutral consumers.

Finally, Nike will have been encouraged by studies showing that consumers reward brands for speaking up on divisive social issues. But it is doing something more novel and calculated than other multinationals that have weighed in on immigration, gun control or race: it did not stumble into this controversy; it sought it.

A polarised populace is a fact of life for brands, in the US and beyond. That leaves them with a choice: try to carry on catering to a vanishing mass-market middle ground, or stake out a position that will infuriate one side but excite the other. The latter strategy has worked for politicians such as Mr Trump. Unlike elected officials, a brand can win with far less than 50.1 per cent of the population behind it. (Nike chief executive Mark Parker told investors last year that it was looking to just 12 global cities to drive 80 per cent of its growth.)

sorethumb

sorethumb

“I’m going to spoil it a bit, what this really is about is two strains of liberalism: localism and these two strains have come into contact and one has found that it despises the other. They’re contradictory you cannot have both and one section really doesn’t like the other section, for many reasons. Lots of these are cultural, many of these are economic, a lot of them are class based and the kind of condescension towards the lower orders. Broadly speaking it is the politically correct elite left wing against the politically incorrect common right-wing. And Laurie penny is unable to explain what Bannon has actually done wrong.

lurcher1948

Good old Genesis energy coming to the party today,8hours of free power 12pm to 8 pm My wife will be using it to death and with Labors power subsidy this pensioner family is living the dream and lets not mention Winstons gold card,Dont bother going into Wellington in my SUV or my wifes corolla,we take the FREE bus

David

You see the innovation that happens when you list on the sharemarket, and they are more profitable and paying bigger dividends with a near flat retail power price. Capitalism at its finest.
Meanwhile in Venezuela with the worlds largest oil reserves socialism leaves half the country in the dark.

Alan Wilkinson

lurcher1948

A dog crapping a sticky one on Lambton Quay could be embarrassing, so they stay at home
but if push came to shove we could take our earthquake rescue TULLULAH a Sydney silky X toy poodle small but tough, tougher than your average righty…just saying

Alan Wilkinson

lurcher1948

Supermarket bags 500 for $20 Moore Wison or smaller 1000 for around the same price, bought a box of 500 Thursday,Poo bags that we use are cheap as,$2 for 50,we NEVER use supermarket bags for dog poo,they are used for the kitchen bin,Alan have you never had a dog or kitchen bin?????

Alan Wilkinson

Our kitchen bin doesn’t need a bag. The contents go straight into the compost and it gets washed out. We have stockpiled our shopping bags and have enough to last until Winston’s poodle gets voted out.

Kitty Catkin

I have a stockpile, too, although I empty my bin liner into the big bag and reuse it; my rubbish isn’t dirty. When it wears out, I wash it and dry it and put it in the supermarket recycling bin. I use so few that I may well have enough to see me out. I have many, many incandescent bulbs just in case.

It may well use more resources to wash the bin out.

I have a little bin with a lift-up lid for compost so that I don’t have to go to the compost bin all the time. $4 from K Mart and it keeps any pong in.

Alan Wilkinson

Griff.

LED pay from themselves kitty
1/10 the energy used. means the pay back for a frequently used bulb is less than a year
Plus they last longer and have a better quality of light. Once you get used to warm white the puke yellow of incandescent bulbs looks like shite.

My power is free on a yearly basis . It cost me less to set up my solar system than what it would have been just to run a cable from the grid up the drive . Next payment will be in about ten years when I buy new batteries. They will be both cheaper and better than the ones I have now.

sorethumb

The recent vandalism of the Captain Hamilton statue in the city that bears his name will no doubt provoke vigorous debate in council chambers.

These debates will most likely discuss whether it’s appropriate to have such a monument displayed so prominently in a public place, when so many of the city’s (and country’s) residents are increasingly living in the past. Yes, that’s both Māori and Pākehā.

There’s been renewed interest in New Zealand’s history lately, thanks in part to work by Stuff on the Treaty of Waitangi and a call from teachers and students to have the New Zealand Wars made a compulsory subject in schools.

Unfortunately, with that renewed interest comes the inevitable fretting about what went on and how the descendants of one ‘side’ should apologise and seek forgiveness from the descendants of the other.

I’m of Māori descent and my iwi is Ngāti Kuia, a small tribe from the top of the South Island – Te Tau Ihu, or the prow of Māui’s canoe. In the 19th Century my ancestors were invaded, conquered, and subjugated – a common story for many iwi.

Kitty Catkin

I was flabbergasted to see who the vandal was. He’s well old enough to know better. I have met him, my husband knew him. Timi Maipi ! He is an arrogant sod, his brother’s much nicer.

The statue is badly placed and makes little impact. It looks as if it’s been stood there while someone decides where to put it. Because it’s not on a plinth, it looks as if the Captain was a real shorty, but when you stand next to it, it’s obvious that he wasn’t really. It’s in a dull concrete area and looks silly.

David

Obama was tits at running the place under his watch 1 in 4 black men under the age of 25 was either in jail, on remand or on parole the man was elected to sort shit out but instead used all his political capital to pass ineffectual healthcare legislation. The man is a disgrace.

David

Under Obama Lurcher healthcare insurance premiums under ObamaCare were increasing in some states at over 110% a year, think about that amount Lurcher just try and get your head around that level of increase. A family of four could be paying 2k a month.

David

Under Obama pretty much everyone in the US was spied upon and then he bugged the phone of German Chancellor Merkel and for his finale he left us with executive order 12333 which not only expanded mass surveillance but allowed for any sort of data sharing for no particular reason.

David

Lurcher, Obama pretty much did everything you hate, he bailed out Wall St and no one one got locked up because his treasury secretaries were ex Goldman Sachs people.
He expanded mass surveillance to industrial levels and lied about it. He spied on journalists from AP who were giving him bad press. He expanded the drone program and blew up god knows how many wedding celebrations. He oversaw the slaughter of young black men by police departments up and down the country and did nothing.
The man was a disgrace because he had so much promise, so much potential and gave people so much hope and then he did absolutely nothing. Will be remembered alongside Carter as a really nice guy but deadset useless.

Kitty Catkin

David

“The days of male colleagues sharing in an after-work pint are over because the tradition alienates female colleagues, according to the boss of the tech giant Uber.

Dara Khosrowshahi said that drinking beer “with the guys at work” is wrong and unfair, something he realised after undergoing training to make Uber a more inclusive workplace.

The executive, who joined from travel company Experian, said he would no longer go for a drink with just male colleagues after work, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Speaking in San Francisco, he said: “In my last job, when I wanted a beer after work I had a beer with one of the guys because it was comfortable, because it was a person who looked like me and a person I could be more casual with.”

This from the boss of a taxi company, ironic eh. He would probably prefer to go out with the girls to yoga or whatever it is female work colleagues do or is that not allowed either.